Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

An amazing product has emerged from Microsoft’s Live Labs.  Photosynth allows anyone to create an immersible and interactive experience given just a set of digital photographs of an area.  I’ll just warn up front that this is a Windows only product at this point, but its novelty more than justifies the download and installation.

Photosynth screen capture showing the Asian Gallery at the IMA

As you read on, you’ll probably discover that I had way too much fun with this tool, and I hope you will as well.

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Student using Global Origins

If you find yourself wandering through the Asian Art Galleries here at the IMA, take a quiet moment to follow the sounds of the Qin music. You will be led to a giant LCD display with a touch panel overlay and a hair dryer-esque sound dome above your head. Global Origins represents one of the first applications developed in-house by the IMA and marks a pivotal point in how the museum approaches technology.

I’ll step back a moment now and introduce myself. My name is Charlie Moad and I am an Applications Developer (a.k.a software developer) here at the museum. Now before you conjure up thoughts of suspenders and lisps, let me assure you I am quite the contrary. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons and I was only addicted to World of Warcraft for 6 months! I started at the museum 2 years ago and we have since hired another software developer and a graphics designer. Together we form what we call, the Applications Team. Traditionally museums outsource their technology which can be very expensive and time consuming. Each project requires bringing a new consultant up to speed on the basic operations of the institution. We allow the museum to retain knowledge and be more flexible when approaching technology.

Now back to Global Origins (GO). GO is an add-on to the NASA developed 3D world viewer, World Wind. Visitors are presented with a spinning globe and a series of stamps with works of art on them. Touching a stamp spins and zooms the globe to the respective origin and provides more information on the work and the culture. The application is meant to provide users with a visual orientation of where some of these works originated.

Global Origins using World Wind by NASA

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It’s official – time flies. And I can’t stop thinking about it. Thursday night while watching my most recent guilty pleasure, Swingtown, the teacher asked the students to write a paper on the subjective nature of time. I hadn’t really thought about it like that before, but time – like art – certainly is subjective. My compulsive thinking about time started with my boss, Leann Standish, leaving the IMA last week after five amazing years at the IMA and moving onto do big things at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I made her a scrapbook capturing moments with our team since my first day here nearly 4 years ago and this too has made me keenly aware of time. Am I the only one completely baffled that 2008 is half over?

It’s been a good year so far. I celebrated my “golden birthday” this year when I turned 28 on March 28th, which supposedly brings luck (I can’t complain.) Many of my girlfriends’ male counterparts have turned 30 this year (mine included) which means lots of parties and duh, birthday cake. Another highlight of 2008? Obviously the release of the Sex and the City movie. I have inadvertently begun asking myself questions a’ la Carrie Bradshaw. What does it all mean? When it comes to time, is it really on our side? (Gazing out my imaginary NYC apartment window with my tank top and “Amber” necklace…)

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